John Nichols’ nickname when he was a cross country runner
at Southwestern College was “Grimace.”

He wasn’t (he’s the first to tell you)
an especially pretty or talented runner. In fact, some of his finishes
as part of Jim Helmer’s
teams in the mid-1980s were downright grim.

Nichols recalls that his most
grueling college race was the 1986 NAIA national marathon. The
temperature at the start of the race was in the mid-80s and
humid.

“Around the 17-mile mark, I began to pass a number of runners,” Nichols
writes. “However, truth in reporting, I did not pass anyone who was still
vertical. Many dropped out of the race. One runner was lying on the side of the
road while someone put ice on him to reduce his temperature. Shortly thereafter,
a race official came up along-side me in a van and asked how I was doing. I responded
that I've been better, but would be OK.

“About a mile later, the same van came alongside
me again and the race official asked whether I would get into the
van. I said no. I was going to finish.
The race official then said, ‘Don’t be stupid, son ... you
should get into the van.’ I responded again that I was going to
finish and asked to be left alone. The van then sped ahead and I didn't
see it again. I later
learned out the race official had located Coach Helmer to try to persuade
him to pull me from the race by saying ‘I think you're boy back
there is in trouble, he looks really bad.’ Coach Helmer laughed
and told the race official, ‘I've
seen him look worse in workouts. He always looks that way ... and he
always finishes.’”

But the way he looked wasn’t nearly
as important as what he was accomplishing: giving it his best. Today,
this graduate with the class of 1987 says he learned
some of his most important life lessons on the cross country course
running for Coach Helmer:

Work hard, race hard, but keep something in
reserve to finish.

Respect for the individual amplifies desire
to win.

Team success is more important than individual success.

Compete
to win; finish strong even when you can’t.

And, maybe most
vital, recognize and respond to the “urgency of the moment.” He
wrote about this Helmerism in a tribute to the coach when
Helmer celebrated his 50th birthday.

“This is the tenseness in your gut when you
feel your team’s success
or failure may be on your shoulders,” Nichols wrote. “It’s
the recognition of those finite instances where everything
you’ve been
working for is on the line. There is sometimes no sense
in saving anything for tomorrow. There might not be any
tomorrow.”

John now lives in California, where he
is a partner in Accenture, one of the world’s largest
and most prestigious developers of computer information
systems. He’s also still running (he ran his first
50-mile race a few weeks ago).

“My years at Southwestern prepared me to achieve
success in the business world. I’ve never had to apologize
for the top-rate education I received at Southwestern. I was a
business major, but interestingly, Southwestern’s
liberal arts curriculum provided the unique ingredients
to my educational experience,” Nichols
says. “For example, sociology courses with Larry
Wilgers helped me observe and understand the behavior
of individuals and their interactions with complex
organizations. I suspect Larry might find it amusing
that he was helping prepare me to be a more successful
capitalist.”

John and his wife, Kelly (Broadhurst)’89,
have made a gift of $25,000 ($5,000 per year for five
years with 50% of this matched by Accenture) to the
Builders of Excellence campaign, a gift that will
support Southwestern and
the track program that taught him these valuable
life lessons. The gift, he says, is a response to the
campaign’s “urgency of the moment.”

“The things we were able to do at Southwestern, the things we benefited
from when we attended, stemmed from the contributions from others in other campaigns,” he
explains. “So in a sense, we’re paying back a little bit of what
has benefited us. It’s easier to give when the economy is good and there
is less uncertainty. But these difficult times are exactly when Southwestern
needs our financial support the most.

“Running for Jim Helmer broadened and deepened
my educational experience and helped prepare me for the business
world,” he says. “We all had opportunities
given to us by those who preceded us. The Builders
of Excellence campaign is a chance for us to take the baton and
run our leg of this relay race.”